Oh, Fer Cute

May 20, 2009

More like this, please.

Alan Grayson: The reason why I said what I said is because
the fundamental goal of our endeavors in Iraq and Afghanistan is
supposed to be to protect us. That’s why we call the Defense Department
the Defense Department, because it’s supposed to defend America. And
whatever the perceived threat may be, whether it’s al-Qaeda or the
Taliban or otherwise, only by the most incredibly convoluted Bushian
logic could you possibly get to the point where you conclude that as a
result of that threat we should spend $100 billion a year and send over
100,000 of our young men and women abroad, 8,000 miles away, and that
that is an effective way to accomplish that goal. It doesn’t make any
sense.

Life does not consist of a
Risk board game, where you try to occupy every space on the planet.
There’s no other country that does this, there’s no other country that
seeks to occupy foreign countries 8,000 miles from their own border,
and believe that that somehow accomplishes anything useful. It doesn’t.
If in fact it’s important to our national security to keep al-Qaeda or
the Taliban under control, there are far more effective ways of
accomplishing that goal, if that is in fact the goal, than to extend
this kind of money and this kind of blood.

This is something that Democrats said when they were in the
opposition repeatedly, and that truth hasn’t changed at all just
because we elected a president. You can always find some kind of excuse
to do what you want to do anyway, but I have to wonder why a new
Democratic president wants to do something like this. This is a
president who has recognized the immorality of torture, and I’m waiting
for him to recognize the immorality of war and foreign occupation.

The whole interview is like this. Please don't get on any small planes, Mr. Grayson.

Comments

He's a freshman. Just wait till the "upperclassmen" haze him, isolate him, and neuter his ability to do anything meaningful. Don't even get me started on how the unbearable pressure of raising money corrodes his will to do the right thing.

"there are far more effective ways of accomplishing that goal, if that is in fact the goal"

It's not, we have a bigger military budget than the rest of the world combined (ok, maybe a few bill short) so as to protect American business interests, both here and abroad. It's long been like that, as Googling United Company + US Marines will show.

Kucinich has been saying this for years yet is totally ignored by lefty bloggers. If these bloggers had supported him in the primary perhaps he would have become a 'real' third force (as opposed to prettyboy) and we would see very different policies from whomever went on to be the dem nominee.